Four young Fayette women head for LDS missions

Tue, 01/22/2013 - 11:13amThe Citizen

Four local young women, Madison Coburn (Fayette County High School), Lauren Jennings (Whitewater High School), Hannah Stebar (Sandy Creek High School), and Madison Houston (MacIntosh High School), will soon join the missionary force for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Madison Coburn has been called to serve in San Jose, Costa Rica, Lauren has been called to serve in Santiago, Chile, Hannah has been called to serve in Taipei, Taiwan, and Madison Houston has been called to serve in Curitiba, Brazil.

A reduction in age requirements for Mormon missionary service will now allow young women to begin service at age 19 (formerly 21) and young men to serve at 18. Applications for missionary service have increased dramatically from 700 weekly applications to about 4,000.

Currently there are 14 Fayette County youth serving missions in the U.S. (California, Colorado, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, Washington) and in five other countries (Mexico, Scotland, Ireland, Chile and Russia). Those participating in the LDS missionary program do so voluntarily, and as such, pay for their own expenses during their service.

All four girls will need to learn their country’s language and will spend six weeks in an intensive language center preparing them for their journey. Following their studies, they will travel to their assigned destinations.